Modern Love

Jacob Van LunenThursday, February 06, 2014

elcome back to Perilous Research, DailyMTG.com's exclusive Magic Online column. Since we last met, Modern's banned list saw some changes. Deathrite Shaman was banned, while Wild Nacatl and Bitterblossom were unbanned. Sure, this is a small change in terms of size, but the implications are huge. With a Modern Pro Tour just around the corner, the effects of the new changes are far-reaching. Born of the Gods Prerelease events start in less than two weeks on Magic Online. Until then, we'll take a break from Magic Online metagame speculation in favor of more relevant subject-matter. Today, we'll be exploring some of the new possibilities in Modern with the recent changes to the banned list.

Bitterblossom

Bitterblossom has been unbanned! Bitterblossom's legality has always been a hotly contested issue. The card, while powerful, isn't oppressive in a format as large as Modern. There are a few strategies, and a few cards in particular, that are sure to be very excited about the prospect of playing with Bitterblossom.

The first and most obvious deck for Bitterblossom to unlock is Faeries. Faeries is one of the greatest Standard decks of all time. The deck is tremendously good at staying ahead once it's in the lead and its ability to completely dominate control and combo with a draw-go plan makes it a strong choice for the Pro Tour. Many of you are already familiar with Faeries, but a quick refresher course never hurt anyone. The best piece ever written on Faeries is by Paulo Vitor Damo Da Rosa, hall of famer and greatest Faeries player of all time. I recommend reading his Faeries primer if you plan on playing Modern in a world of Bitterblossom.

Making a new Faeries list will be difficult. We know the appropriate ingredients, but the numbers and card choices will depend greatly on the landscape of the new Modern format. The biggest question deck builders face when attempting to build a Faeries deck is whether or not they should be including Scion of Oona. Bitterblossom is sure to improve many White-Black Token strategies, and Lingering Souls will remain one of the strongest cards in the format. With all the opposing 1-toughness fliers that people are already battling Vendilion Clique with, it stands to reason that Scion of Oona would be very strong in the current Modern environment.

Master of PTQs, Pascal Maynard, recently posted the following Modern Faeries list to Facebook. We can expect a lot of the initial Faeries decks to look something like this:

Scion of Oona is very strong, but if we start seeing cards like Volcanic Fallout in people's sideboards, then we probably want to eschew the Faerie lord in favor of more interaction and pure card power instead of synergy.

Let's take a look at a Faeries deck that doesn't play with Scion of Oona:

Wild Nacatl

Sure, Bitterblossom is a great card, but Wild Nacatl is arguably the best one-mana creature in the format now that it's been unbanned. (Much less arguably now that it doesn't have to compete with Deathrite Shaman.) Wild Nacatl's return to the format means that aggressive decks will once again have footing in the exceptionally powerful Modern format.

Since Wild Nacatl was banned, we've seen some success from aggressive artifact strategies with Cranial Plating, but the format became a haven for control and combo strategies to duke it out. Reintroducing Wild Nacatl means that "Zoo" decks of all varieties will have an opportunity to prove their worth in the Modern format.

Zoo can take on a lot of shapes and sizes. One of the best examples of this diversity can be seen in the Top 8 decklists from Pro Tour Austin. Brian Kibler, the eventual winner, played a slower and slightly bigger Zoo deck that was well suited for aggressive creature mirrors. Meanwhile, the Czech master, Martin Juza, Top 8ed the very same tournament with an extremely aggressive version of the deck.

Let's take a look at the hyper-aggressive Zoo deck that Martin Juza piloted to a Top 8 in Austin:

This deck is entirely Modern legal right now. You could register Juza's main deck from Pro Tour Austin and likely put yourself in a pretty good position at Pro Tour Born of the Gods. The deck comes out of the gates with brutal speed and doesn't let up until the opponent is lifeless. More recently, versions of Tribal Flames decks in Modern have been popping up with Geist of Saint Traft and Snapcaster Mage. We could see a hybrid version of that deck and this one perform well at the Pro Tour. It seems pretty exciting to flashback a full-value Tribal Flames.

Zoo has a lot of angles, and it doesn't necessarily need to win the game quickly as long as it has the longevity and power to hang in the midgame. Brian Kibler's winning decklist from Pro Tour Austin is an excellent example of this. We may not have access to the Grove of the Burnwillows/Punishing Fire combo anymore, but we can still learn a lot about the varieties of the Zoo archetype by examining his list:

In the coming weeks, we'll have the opportunity to bear witness to a wealth of innovation and excitement at Pro Tour Born of the Gods. We should be sure to tune in to DailyMTG.com for live coverage of this exciting event! Also, we shouldn't forget to register for this weekend's Born of the Gods release events at our local gaming store. Most stores have limited space, and there's a huge demand to play in the release tournaments; if we can reserve our spot in these events we don't have to worry about showing up early.

Jacob Van Lunen began playing Magic in 1995. He has participated in organized play at every level of competition and was a member of the winning team at Pro Tour San Diego in 2007, thanks to an innovative draft strategy. As a writer, Van Lunen has had more than three hundred Magic strategy pieces published.